


all your lights are red, but i’m green to go

by queenregent, thebelljarlife



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 06:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5529059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenregent/pseuds/queenregent, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebelljarlife/pseuds/thebelljarlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Stop that. You’re doing the whole – thing,” he says, waving his hand in the general vicinity of Harry’s entire body, wine slopping around noisily inside the bottle. “I’m not gonna sleep with you tonight, Haz. We can’t. We said we were done, and— and we should, like. Stick to that. We had important, mature reasons for breaking up and— yeah."</i>
</p><p>Or, the one where Louis and Harry have split, but Louis' birthday - and Christmas - may just bring them back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all your lights are red, but i’m green to go

**Author's Note:**

> This would not have been possible without [Tara](http://achillesthegreat.tumblr.com), who is the Louis to my Harry - thank you for the encouragement and inspiration (as always); writing would be impossible without your support.
> 
> Merry Christmas!

A boy with blue hair and a nose piercing is looking at Harry from the middle of the dance floor as he grinds his hips back against a faceless man in the shadows.

It’s supposed to be seductive and enticing and all those things that pretty boys in clubs are looking for – danger, Harry supposes, or sex. Maybe he should’ve made his way through the crowds of people and claimed him somehow; too the initiative and kissed him exactly how the boy seemed to want him to. The alcohol buzzing through Harry’s veins probably should’ve helped with that, too – made him feel confident and happy and warm, full of the festive season, what with Christmas only a few days away. Instead, Harry tears his eyes away from the boy and looks down at the bottom of his empty glass. The remnants of something pink and sweet still cling to the edges of the cup, and the smell of artificial strawberries still lingers in the air and on his tongue.

But his thoughts are miles away from the club and the boy and the drink – they’re full of the fact that for the first time since they’d met, Harry is going to miss Louis’ birthday.

“What do you think, Harry?”

The voice pulls Harry from where he’d been contemplating his empty drink to the group of friends that he’d come out with. His LA regulars – _a_ _clique_ , Louis had called them – are grouped around a small, circular table littered with empty glasses and baskets of soggy fries. He hasn’t been paying attention to their conversation in the slightest, and he gives them an apologetic smile. A few giggle, clearly used to Harry’s wayward thoughts and lack of focus during group gatherings, and for some reason, it makes him sour, thinking longingly of home.

Jeff clarifies. “About Yolanda. Writing with her. What do you think?”

Harry glances from Jeff’s dark eyes to the somewhat brighter ones of the pretty black girl sitting beside him. She is a newcomer to the group – a guest, if you will – who had been invited along for the night in order to mingle and make nice with Jeff, who had signed her just two weeks prior. Advertised to Harry as an up-and-coming indie artist, Yolanda’s voice is something of a cross between Adele and Meghan Trainor, and she is, apparently, going to take the industry by storm – with a little help from Harry, of course.

“Uhm,” he says, looking between the two of them, alcohol making his brain slow. “Yeah, sure, I mean—yeah.”

Yolanda beams happily, either because she’s genuinely excited to work with him or because she got a vision of her career after being linked to Harry Styles, and he has to turn away again. He’s no longer needed, anyway – Jeff’s discussing songs and styles and influences, the kind of stuff that’s supposed to make new and naïve artists feel as though they’re actually going to have some kind of control over the material they make and release to the world. After five years in the juggernaut known as One Direction, Harry knows just how much of a lie that is. Even Jeff – sincere, kind, caring Jeff – has to make a living, and in order for that to happen, Yolanda will be sold to the highest common denominator.

The cheapness makes Harry itch, as does the reminder of the fact that he’s not even technically _in_ the music industry anymore. With the band on break – indefinitely, despite what they’ve been forced to say for the benefit of fans and wealthy investors – Harry’s as free as a bird, nothing to tie him down. He’s still, somehow, landed himself in LA; the city of lost angels, where he’s managed to become one of them easily enough. People still ask for the occasional picture, but the furore over the band’s hiatus has died down to a small hum as the world keeps turning – there’s money to be made, and other music to be heard, and the world manages to do both of those things without Harry or One Direction.

Which is why he’s lining himself up for writing gigs, going wherever Jeff leads. He’s got songs – several notebooks’ worth, really – but the passion feels like it’s faded. He wants a break, but more than that, he wants to be invisible – to sink through the floor and through the earth and keep going til he’s on the other side of the world, feet planted firmly back home in England, where there’s a possibility he might see Louis.

_Louis._

The word catches in his throat and makes his heart clench painfully. The alcohol tells him he should think about this – should mull over the break up and how it’s been almost ten months since it happened; how Louis’ face had looked when Harry had ended things, or how Louis and Harry had struggled to be around one another ever since. All of those things are well-worth reflection, but the greater part of Harry is counting down the hours until it’s Louis’ birthday.

It was never easy for Louis to be born on Christmas Eve – though people loved him and cared about him, their enjoyment on the day was forever shaded by what was coming the next. The first year they’d spent the holidays together, Louis had whispered to Harry in the dead of night on the eve of his birthday that Harry seemed like the only person who honestly cared more about his birthday than Christmas. And though, at the time, Harry had blushed and laughed and kissed Louis quiet, he’d always made sure that Louis’ birthday was special each year – that it was always something memorable, something intimate. A party, a night in, a kitten – whatever Louis wanted, it was his.

 “... ideas, Harry?”

Looking up, Jeff is looking at Harry again. He swallows, embarrassed. “Sorry?”

“Do you have any ideas?” Jeff repeats, nodding his head to indicate Yolanda. “For a song?”

“I— yeah, I mean—I have a few, yeah.”

“Unrequited love and heartbreak, probably,” Jeff says, teasingly, though it stings that Harry has been pigeon-holed so easily despite not having really got his writing career off the ground yet.

He drifts back to thinking – thinking about Louis, and how he will be spending his birthday with his family who will inevitably smile as he blows the candles out on a cake, but whose eyes will always drift to the Christmas tree twinkling in the corner. It makes Harry’s eyes itch and a lump form in his throat with how much he wants – no, _needs_ – to be there. They’d ended things tensely before they’d all parted ways as the hiatus began, all terse nods and choked smiles, but none of that matters – none of it matters if Harry can just _be_ there and touch him and tell him what a mistake he made.

Harry doesn’t know if he can fix what has happened between them romantically; that kind of web can be undone about as easily as the Christmas lights boxed up beneath the stairs in his house. He wants to – he wants Louis back so much it burns at night, keeping him awake – but what right does he have to feel that if he had been the one to end it?

Before he really knows what he’s doing, Harry’s finishing off the last drops in his cup, patting down his pockets to feel for his phone and wallet before excusing himself from the table. They hardly notice he’s gone – he can hear Jeff asking the table what they think of Yolanda writing with Sia – but it’s forgotten as Harry ducks out of the club and into a waiting taxi idling on the curb.

The lights of LA are particularly blinding this time of year: department store windows are illuminated with colourful displays of festive cheer, screaming sentiments at passers-by that Harry just doesn’t feel.

He used to love Christmas – the holidays were a time when his parents actually came together for more than an hour, and he would always be the centre of attention, right alongside Gemma. It was nice to have everyone under one roof, the past forgotten as they all exchanged presents and took photos and pulled crackers that revealed poor jokes and even poorer made paper hats. Things had changed when Harry met Louis, though – suddenly the holiday season built up to Louis’ birthday, rather than Christmas. It wasn’t that strange to Harry, because he’d always been so eager to please Louis – spent weeks, _months_ , even, researching presents and trying to figure out the _perfect_ gift that would make Louis light up like a Christmas tree himself. It got harder the older they got and the more money they earned – Louis bought himself whatever he needed or wanted, leaving Harry nothing to buy that could fill the hole.

But the beauty was in the struggle; and he’d turned to more sentimental presents in the last few years. Rings or photo albums or the kitten that Louis had been dropping hints about all year. Harry hadn’t really thought that last Christmas would have _actually_ been their last – things had been rough for a while, but not ending-things-rough. Zayn leaving and the band’s impending hiatus had forced Harry’s to make a rash and impulsive decision to end things between him and Louis after nearly five years of being together.

Frowning out the window of the taxi, Harry wonders why Louis didn’t fight him on it harder.

Of course, he’d contemplated that very thing numerous times during the year – it was hard not to, especially when he and Louis were in one another’s spaces almost every day when on tour and, of late, with album promo. It had become easy – _too_ easy – to pretend that things were alright; like when he’d laugh at something Louis had said and their eyes would catch, a flash of heart-clenching nostalgia before they’d turn away and remember everything that’s come since.

It’s always to an empty hotel room that Harry had retreated to at the end of the night, regardless of what happened on stage, and that’s when he remembers what he’d done – how he’d been the one to let Louis go.

The taxi driver is, thankfully, stoic and professional, remaining silent for the entire drive before dropping Harry off in front of his house. He hadn’t bothered to put Christmas lights up this year – there didn’t really seem a point, given that he would be alone for the holiday – so after swiping his card and ducking out of the cab, Harry scales the front steps to a dark doorway and an even darker interior. He’s barely closed the door before there’s a bark from within and, a moment later, a skittering of claws on tile and he’s greeted with the bounding form of Cat.

Cat – a name chosen by Louis, of course – is a golden retriever that Louis had given Harry for his birthday the year prior. What had once been a puppy is now a huge golden polar bear that almost bowls Harry over as he kneels down to pet him. His fur is soft and warm, and his tongue drops happily out of his mouth as Harry scratches behind his ear, feeling his eyes prickle at the sight of the dog. As much as Cat reminds him of Louis, he couldn’t bear to part with him when the two of them split: Cat had been like a child in a divorce, signed to the care of one parent and one parent only. Louis hadn’t even bothered to ask about him since they’d separated.

“What are we going to do, eh?” Harry murmurs, sniffling slightly as Cat sits down in front of him and lets his tongue loll out the side of his mouth.

***

As it turns out, coming up with a plan is easy.

Harry - sitting first class on a red eye to London - sets up his small compartment exactly as he would if he were going on tour. Some of the longest flights – like those to Australia – forced him to hone a routine that allowed him to sleep, but also to arrive feeling fresh and awake and beat off the jet lag that would be hitting in only a few hours. He’s got a small line of products – moisturisers and hand creams and sleeping pills – as well his journal, a book, and his headphones. Dressed in comfy, baggy sweats, Harry feels apprehension beginning to settle in his stomach once the distractions have died away.

What if he gets there and Louis slams the door in his face? Or, worse, what if he falls straight back in love with Louis but he doesn’t feel the same? What if he isn’t even _home_?

It’s too late to depart now, what with the pilot announcing they’re preparing for take off and that all mobile devices should be switched off.

He’s going to London.

***

About nine hours into his eleven hour flight, and it’s just too much.

There’s just too many variables – too many things that Louis could say apart from _thank you for coming, I wanted you here_ that Harry can barely eat, let alone sleep. His routine, perfectly formulated for these kinds of flights, is thrown out the window as the plane shakes through its fifth hour of turbulence. There’s nothing like being jostled around in the air like a toy car in a child’s fist every few minutes that sets Harry’s teeth on edge, leaving him clawing at the arm rests like a cat with blunt nails.

Thankfully, there’s alcohol, and he’s overcompensating with wine – and lots of it. With lips stained cherry-red and a pleasant buzz circulating through his body that quietens his insecurities, Harry lulls himself into a false sense of optimism. Why _wouldn’t_ Louis be happy he’s arrived on his doorstep in time for his birthday? It’s romantic and, if nothing else, at least a sign that Harry wants them to be friends – a point that Louis had argued against him time and time again.

 _You don’t want to be friends because that would be too easy,_ he’d said. _You need me to be the bad guy so you don’t have to._

Everything is going to go smoothly, Harry thinks to himself, drowning out Louis’ words with another generous sip of wine.

***

Security meets him at Heathrow, a convoy of black cars that is nothing if not a blinking fucking neon light that a celebrity has just landed. He can do little more than roll his eyes at the row of paps that have been called and are pressing their lenses against the glass, hoping to catch something that’ll be splashed across the papers tomorrow.

He lowers his sunglasses despite the fact that it’s late at night and, with his head ducked and mouth set, forces his way through them. It’s a struggle to remain upright, if he’s honest – the wine’s turned his legs to jelly, but the media trained part of his brain powers through, knowing that if he’s seen staggering though an airport, the media will have a field day.

Basil is loading in his luggage as Harry flops into the backseat, sighing out loud and buckling himself in. He remembers now why he stayed in LA.

***

They’d spent months fighting in a way that wasn’t at all fighting – it was like a silent war played out through glances and sighs and tense silences that eventually exploded with all the things that had been left unsaid and unresolved. Maybe they both should’ve known better; maybe they should’ve worked out how to communicate properly before it got that bad, because anyone who’s seen a romantic comedy knows that sex isn’t communication – it’s a distraction. And they’d excelled at it.

***

The apartment that Harry owns in London is cold and empty when he unlocks the door and leaves it hanging for security to start unloading his stuff.

Furniture, covered over in white sheets, gives the impression that someone just died – like their relatives couldn’t bear to look at the objects anymore because they were strong reminders of those that had passed on. Harry supposed it was apt, given that he hadn’t been back here since he’d still been with Louis.

He walks around the apartment, turning on lamps and closing curtains, stirring up dust with the heels of his boots as he goes. The bedroom is untouched – crisp sheets pulled taut across the mattress and pillows fluffed up against the headboard. Harry remembers how Louis had tied him to the pole on their last night in London; how Louis had ridden Harry so hard and thorough that he’d been crying with need by the end.

He wonders if the sheets still smell of them.

***

The drive to Louis’ house gives Harry time to clear his head.

The alcohol is starting to wear off enough that he can drive straight without veering all over the road, which means that his anxiety over flying all the way to London on a whim is coming back with a vengeance. Everything he’d managed to suppress on the flight over – the what if’s, the memories of walking out on Louis, the tense months since – come flooding back, causing his hands to grip the steering wheel painfully tight. Thankfully, he’s nursing a fresh bottle of red between his thighs, still wrapped in the brown paper bag that it’d been bought in.

What Harry knows – in a sea of things he doesn’t – is that romantic movies always root for the underdog. In this case, that’s Harry – he’s nothing if not a sap at heart who couldn’t bear to think of Louis alone on his birthday. If this were a movie, the music would be swelling as he drives to Louis’ house, and when he arrives, he’ll have Louis running into his arms, breathless with happiness.

It doesn’t quite work out like that.

Harry ends up chugging wine in the driver’s seat of his car for a while, parked outside of Louis’ house like a creep. There’s a light on upstairs while a few pathetic strings of multi-coloured fairy lights have been strung haphazardly around the porch, remaining upright through sheer force of will and what looks suspiciously like sticky tape. Decoration had never been Louis’ strong suit – even when they’d bought their first apartment together, he’d shrugged at the swatches and samples and let Harry do his thing. Even the garden is looking dilapidated despite the fact that Louis has enough money to hire an entire army of people to take care of it for him. He’d always been lazy, mostly provoked into some kind of cleanliness by Harry – but without him there, his house has fallen into disarray.

He wonders if the rest of Louis’ life feels the same without Harry. He mulls that over as he takes another sip of wine and pulls out his phone.

There are several missed calls and texts from his family, who must’ve heard that he is back in England, as well as few from Jeff, asking where he’d got to and when he’ll be free to schedule a writing session with Yolanda.

Harry bypasses the lot and scrolls through his contacts, landing on the ‘L’s and immediately spotting Louis’ name.

He hadn’t changed it since they’d broken up – it was still _Louis_ with a series of heart emojis that sparkle and the one of the two boys holding hands. It had been hard to look at his name cropping up in work-related texts, surrounded by hearts when Harry had felt anything but loving toward him. But some part of Harry – the sappy part, probably - hadn’t been able to stomach deleting them. Every time he tried he just ended up re-adding the emojis he backspaced, biting his lip as he watched the two little cartoon men holding hands reappear, as if correcting real life mistakes were as easy as pressing a button.

Maybe, Harry thinks, he should try it before knocking it.

Pressing ‘call’ on Louis’ contact number, he wonders for a brief moment if Louis will decline him – they haven’t spoken in _weeks_ , let alone on the phone and in private. Harry can’t even remember the last thing he’d said to Louis, it had been that impersonal – the album promotion had ended with a fizzle and there had been a slew of goodbye parties that had mostly ended with Harry drunk and Louis leaving before it was even over.

But—he answers.

“’lo?”

“Hi.”

“… Harry?”

Louis sounds like he’s tired, or like he’s just woken from a nap, and it makes Harry’s stomach flip through the oceans of wine.

“Yeah,” he breathes, tapping his knuckle against the bottle.

There’s a silence, both of them just breathing for a moment, before Louis speaks, tone slightly closed off.

“How’s LA?”

It’s probably the middle of the day in America, which is why Harry feels wide awake – he can imagine the hot sun beating down on baked concrete, while the traffic backs up for miles, making it impossible to move anywhere fast.

“Wouldn’t know,” he says, taking another sip of the wine as he climbs out of his car and onto the cold street.

Winter has arrived in England in a way that California will never know – the air, biting and sharp, nips at the exposed skin of Harry’s cheek and neck, while the first hints of snow have already melted on the sidewalks and are flowing freely into the drains.

“Thought you were spending the holidays with Jeff.”

Louis’ been looking at his Instagram feed.

“No,” he says, shaking his head and his world spins for a moment. “Not anymore.”

“Why?” asks Louis, who always hated beating around the bush and Harry’s cryptic shit. _Say what you mean or don’t say anything at all,_ he’d always said.

“Look outside.”

 

It’s a cliché – _such_ a cliché – but Harry grins as Louis peels open his curtains and looks down at Harry through a halo of golden lamp light, his phone still pressed to his ear.

“Is that wine?” he asks, face impassive as he stares down at Harry, whose leaning against the car as if he’s Hugh Grant and Louis’ his long-awaited Bridget Jones. Or maybe he’d be Colin Firth. Colin seems more his speed – he has a sense of propriety, more manners, more— “Are you drunk?”

“I—yeah.” There’s no point in lying, and Harry can see Louis frowning. “Please come down?”

He can see, rather than hear, when Louis hangs up on him – the curtains close, cutting off the light from the upper storey, leaving Harry clutching his phone in one hand and swilling the contents of the wine in the other.

Louis opens the door after a minute, emerging in an over-sized hoodie that almost swallows him whole. He looks tired, dark bags under his eyes and hair a mess, as though he’d just woken from a nap and was now disgruntled and sleepy.

“You can’t just show up like this,” he says when Harry walks toward him.

They settle on the front steps of his porch, knees close enough to brush without actually touching. It’s almost midnight, Harry thinks idly as he looks up at the pitch-black sky.

“Like.” Louis sighs dramatically, and Harry sees him scrub his eyes. “How am I supposed to be rational and mature and responsible when you’re here and it’s my birthday and you’re looking like—like _that_.”

That makes Harry turn to look at him properly. “Like what?” he asks quietly, cheeks a faint pink from the wine and hair curling down around his neck, pushed down further by the beanie he’d shoved on before leaving the house.

Louis snatches the bottle of wine from Harry’s hand, glaring at him as he takes a gulp, audibly swallowing.

“Stop that. You’re doing the whole – thing,” he says, waving his hand in the general vicinity of Harry’s entire body, wine slopping around noisily inside the bottle. “I’m not gonna sleep with you tonight, Haz. We can’t. We said we were done, and— and we should, like. Stick to that. We had important, mature reasons for breaking up and— yeah."

It’s not what Harry expected – so much so that he actually feels a little bit winded. He’d wanted sex, of course, but it hadn’t been the first thing on his mind when he’d bought the tickets to fly here; it’d been Louis, all of him, sex or no sex. It was his _birthday,_ and Harry couldn’t bear to sit in his empty house – he didn’t care if he made a fool of himself in front of Louis, so long as he knew that Harry still cared.

Of course, a text message might have conveyed that sentiment fine, but Harry was never one to do anything by halves.

“I wasn’t gonna ask you to sleep with me, ‘m not a slag,” Harry drawls, voice slow and methodical like it always gets when he’s been drinking. _You sound like Tom Waits on a good day,_ Louis had told him once. “Just wanted to see you.”

Louis looks at him dubiously as he sips from the wine bottle.

“Fine, I-- I wanted to kiss you, is that so bad?” he folds, biting his lip as he looks from Louis’ and back up to his eyes. “Would it break the invisible rules of being broken up or something? Doesn't mean we're married, Lou - just means I want your birthday to be good."

His drunken mouth keeps running, and he can see a fond flicker of annoyance pass over Louis’ face.

“Kissing always leads to other stuff with us. How am I supposed to like— just be okay with a kiss?” he asks, staring at Harry so sincerely that he actually feels his cheeky smile slip a little on his face.

If Louis genuinely means it – if he genuinely doesn’t want Harry here—

“It’s mean, Haz, for you to like. End things. And then come here looking like— you do. And asking for this. And just— being you. How am I ever supposed to get over you?”

Harry feels brought up short, the wine making him frown and look at Louis with a shocked, somewhat sad expression. He hadn’t really considered what it had been like for Louis when they split – what he felt, or how quickly he got over Harry. He’d assumed that Louis sleeping around on tour – fans, strangers, it was all the same thing – was a sure sign that he was over Harry.

“Do you want to get over me?” he asks, genuine. “Because we both had our reasons to end it – I mean-… I had my reasons to end it, and like. Maybe I’m pissed and maybe it’s the fact that it’s your birthday, but like… none of those reasons feel good enough right now.”

It _feels_ like the truth, which makes Harry feel surer when he curls his long fingers around Louis’ elbow, feeling the hard line of bone and muscle beneath the soft material of his hoodie. Louis doesn’t react to the touch, not even when Harry shuffles across the stone step and leans in closer, nose tracing Louis’ jaw and breath puffing warm against the skin of Louis’ neck.

“Just a kiss,” Harry murmurs, wine-soggy and hopeful. “Just one – think of it as a goodbye, if you want. Just one to finish us off, yeah?”

Half of Harry expects Louis to pull away – to retreat from the advance and the closeness and the smell of wine on Harry’s breath, but instead Louis twists until he’s cupping Harry’s face. The kiss is chaste and so soft that Harry barely registers it’s happened – his eyes slip shut at the press of Louis’ lips, tasting the wine there that he’d scored from Harry, bitter and fragrant and still somehow different from what’s in the bottle.

“I don’t want to finish us off,” Louis replies quietly, pulling back, hands still warm on Harry’s cheeks. “I don’t want there to just be one more kiss – I want… so much, Haz. And when you come here, and you ask for just one more… It’s killing me.”

And that was what Harry never wanted to do – to hurt Louis, to force him into some position that he never wanted to be in. It’s why Harry had broken it off in the first place; why he’d been the one to say goodbye first, take the plunge and throw them into darkness, because he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted. Harry felt like he always had – always had a plan, an aim, a goal: knew he wanted to sing, entertain, be kind but not ignorant. The break from the band was another opportunity to achieve that, rather than a setback, and Louis – Louis couldn’t come with him.

Or so Harry had thought.

Every plan and dream he’d had for his break away from One Direction was falling through, one after the other. LA was no longer the city where he could become the person he wanted to be, but instead the place where it was a made a mockery of, taunting him every day he woke up in a wide bed all alone. The songs he’d written say unsung and unrecorded in journals, and whatever skills he had – performing, singing, entertaining – remained stowed away. A solo career, if possible, was looking more and more unlikely.

And it wasn’t out of desperation that Harry looked to Louis again, now that things were going poorly – but he couldn’t deny that Louis was the one who had always made him feel like anything was possible.

“Never wanted to hurt you,” Harry murmurs, opening his eyes and dropping them down to where he takes Louis’ warm fingers, curling them into his much cooler palm. “There’s just—so much shit that, like… I think at some point I lost sight of where _we_ were in all of it, you know?”

Glancing up from where Harry holds Louis’ hand, he notices that the dilapidated fairy lights that Louis looks like he’s tossed across the beams of his porch, are throwing their multi-coloured lights across Louis’ face. The colours dance on his cheeks and it’s then that Harry realises how much he’s missed this – just sitting, touching one another in whatever way possible. Their last months of tour had been full of sour silences and averted eyes, and Harry can’t even remember the last time he held Louis; how soft his skin is, or the smell of his shampoo, or the feel of his stubble against Harry’s own skin.

“I miss you, that’s all,” he confesses, biting his lip. “I miss you and I even miss the way your feet smell when you refuse to wear socks and I miss the way you’re always cold but you never do anything about it, and I miss the ay that when I’d wake up, you’d be there. I don’t know,” says Harry, shaking his head so that his curls fall from behind his ears. “I didn’t think it’d feel like – us being apart. I didn’t think it’d be like this near constant _ache_ that I can’t, like, fix, you know?” Louis looks like he does know, so Harry keeps talking. “I thought maybe coming here… kissing you… that maybe it would fix it. Just—just give into it one last time, and that’ll be it. Turns out I was wrong,” he says. “Which isn’t exactly news.”

“Hey,” comes Louis’ voice, gentle and soft as the light breeze that stirs the night, and he gently shifts himself until he’s practically in Harry’s lap, his legs draped over Harry’s and his hands fisted in the material of Harry’s shirt.

The thing is—he’s so small. Harry had almost forgotten, even though he’d seen Louis almost every day since they’d split; he’s compact, hard to the touch, full of wiry muscle and lean limbs that eventually give way to curves that still make Harry’s throat dry, even after all these years. It was never difficult to be attracted to Louis – that part had always come easy for Harry; it was everything else.

“If we both miss it,” Louis is saying, voice quiet like he knows how flighty Harry’s feeling, “if we both miss _us_ , why aren’t we making another go of it?”

Harry looking up at Louis, suddenly close and larger than life, face full of eyes that seem bluer and brighter than he remembers. “What—are you--?”

“I’ve been miserable without you. Nothing—nothing makes sense. It feels like I’m trying to function without a limb, most of the time, like… everything’s just _wrong,_ and my bed’s always too cold and my house feels too big and my life feels too empty, and I just—I want you back, Haz.”

Harry feels like he’s trapped inside his head, pounding and screaming inside his own skull as he stares at Louis, numb and scared and far too drunk on expensive wine to fully process what all of this means – too drunk to even know if it’s _real._

“If you’ll stay,” Louis tacks on, seeing Harry’s stupefied expression. “I can’t do this—I can’t do any of this if you’re just gonna fuck off to LA again tomorrow. I just—if you want me, if you love me… you have to stay.”

It’s an ultimatium that Louis _knows_ Harry can’t sign on for. Because everything inside of him – his atoms, his molecules, his stardust, all of it – are primed for leaving and going and travelling places that he loves but doesn’t quite understand. Before the band – before he’d even contemplated what it would mean to ‘make it’, the world had seemed huge but completely beyond his reach. Places like New York or LA or Sydney were all fever dreams that he’d sweat out, night after night, forever cut off from actually _living_ that life.

Those things were a reality now, and how could Harry ever be content with just England? The problem had never been just Louis – it was staying put in a life that he wasn’t sure he could stomach, or forcing Louis into _his_ world, which would have killed him just the same. The things they wanted weren’t the same as when they’d been kids – Harry wanted his own things now, for himself.

“I want to,” he says, quiet, pressing his forehead to the side of Louis’, exhaling. “I want to stay—fuck, that’s all I’ve wanted, Lou. Just… settle and stay still for five minutes, but it’s not that easy. You always made thing seem that way, but they _aren’t._ ” Harry curled his arms around Louis’ waist, holding him close so that the freezing temperatures couldn’t penetrate the warmth between them. “But I—I want to try. I want to give _us_ another go. Hell, I’d give us fifty chances, if that’s what it takes. I just… I can’t give up what I have there completely, you know? The music, the people… but we can go there together, right? Sometimes? Both of us?”

Louis is quiet in Harry’s arms, the rise and fall of his lungs against Harry’s hands the only indicator he’s actually alive as Harry waits for an answer.

He’s always felt that being with Louis meant compromise: sacrificing what either one of them wanted in order to remain with the other. But maybe – maybe Harry needs to sort out his priorities; get to the bottom of them and all and find what he can’t live without. He knows that if he could never go to LA again, he’d be miserable and heartbroken: it’s one of the best cities in the world, full of culture and life that thrives and teems from every street corner. But to never have Louis again – to go a full life knowing what he _could_ have but was denied… That was unbearable.

He’d sacrifice every city in the world – burn the lot to ash and dust – if it meant getting Louis back.

“Stay till the holidays are over, then,” Louis answers quietly, after a few minutes of silence. “Stay til January 1st. If you can do that – if we can figure out how to make it work – then… alright. I’d be wiling to, like, try again. But I can’t do this again if I’m going to go to bed alone more times than I go to bed with you. I can’t be apart from you, Haz – whether we’re broken up _or_ together. I just—I don’t know _how_.”

It’s more than Harry deserves, and he shakes with the meaning of it – wanting so badly not to mess this up again.

“I can do that,” he breathes, nodding quickly. “I can do that, I promise. Nowhere else I’d rather be for the holidays, anyway.”

Louis is looking at him like he’s some kind of fleeting comet passing through the night sky that he knows he’s going to grow attached to despite the fact that Harry’s going to burn up in the atmosphere, and—Harry hates that he made Louis look like that simply because of who he is, deep down. He hates that he’s that inconsistent – that unreliable – that Louis can’t help but doubt the promise that Harry gives him.

He feels sick with all the times he’s disappointed Louis – and the fact that this is what Louis’ been thinking of him for the last few months, and gently displaces Louis off of his lap and stands up. His world sways dangerously when he’s upright; he’s unsteady on his feet at the best of times, let alone when his stomach’s full of wine and his head’s full of Louis.

“Got something,” Harry slurs, grinning at Louis, “to show you, I mean it.”

Louis looks dubiously on from the porch as Harry staggers to the huge black SUV he’s driven over and opens the back door. Immediately, a golden blur darts from the backseat and into the front yard, barking happily, as though he _knows_ where he is and who he’s with.

The reaction from Louis is instantaneous: he’s on his knees calling for Cat, who bounds over, all paws and tongue lolling happily. Harry’s almost afraid the golden retriever is going to have a heart attack, he looks so happy – yipping and barking, all at once, like he can’t decide what he wants to say as Louis wraps his arms around the dog’s chest and buries his face in his fur.

“I took real good care of him,” Harry says, standing and watching them, a sloppy smile on his face. “Showed him videos so he wouldn’t forget your voice.”

Harry isn’t even sure Louis can hear him – he’s buried so deep in Cat’s fur, fingers curling in the soft, golden hair, that he is almost swallowed up by the giant dog, which – now that Harry’s looking at them together for the first time in months – he realises that Cat’s almost as big as Louis.

“You’ve gotten so big,” he can hear Louis saying, voice soft and gentle and full of the kind of love that a person can only hold for a pet. “You’re so beautiful, look at you.”

When he pulls back, Harry can see he’s wet around the eyes, scratching behind Cat’s ears, right in the spot that makes his tail thump happily against the concrete of Louis’ pathway.

“Missed you, sunshine,” he chokes out, voice tight as he tries to take in all of Cat at once – the changes, the way he’s gone from being a puppy to something like a teenager in his absence. Harry hates that he did that – separated them – but it seemed only right, given that Louis took—

“Dog!” he yells, not caring if he wakes the neighbours as he spots the black cat slinking from the open doorway of the house. Her white paws – like little socks – are the most visible part of her as she creeps down the front porch steps to see what all the fuss is about.

And, like most cats, she retreats quickly when Harry rushes forward to grab her, barely catching a brush of her tail before she bolts. Louis laughs wetly.

“I didn’t show her pictures of your ugly mug, I’m afraid,” he says, and Harry looks back at him and Cat, pouting with his hands still outstretched.

“So much for that reunion. Was almost like a Lifetime movie.”

Louis stands, keeping his fingers knotted in Cat’s fur, as he takes in Harry standing there. He’s dishevelled and drunk and flushed with hope and happiness, illuminated with the optimism that whatever is that’s been broken between them isn’t irrevocably so.

“C’mon then,” Louis says after a minute, nodding his head to the house. “Better get in before the neighbours start recording.”

Cat takes little coaxing to dash into the house, making himself at home as though he never left, but Harry takes a moment to convince himself that this is the right choice. It’s not that he’s doubting what _he_ decided: he wants Louis back, and no amount of wine in his bloodstream is going to convince him that it was the wrong decision to make. He’s mostly worried about Louis – that this isn’t what he’ll want in a few days, or a week, or a month; because when things get difficult, it’s always Harry who stays and Louis who leaves.

“Wait,” Harry says, catching Louis’ hand before he can enter the house, pulling him to a stand-still.

They’re standing on his porch, extremities numb from the cold but chests warm from the alcohol. It feels cliché and romantic and all those festive descriptors that movies are full of: they’ve got the lights and a little bit of snow, but above all, they have each other – the most significant characters in the movie of their lives.

“I just—I wanted—“

He stops speaking and instead kisses Louis – kisses him like he’d been thinking about doing for the entire flight from LA; he kisses him like he’s dreamed of doing since the night he left him. It’s anything but chaste as Harry’s hands cup Louis’ jaw, tilting his head _just so,_ deepening it and turning it from the kind of kiss you see in movies to something you might see in a porno. Full of everything that he’s missed about Louis, Harry kisses him like it’s his salvation and his promise, because they’ve always been good at his – kissing, sex, being physical. It was everything else they struggled with.

It goes for longer than it should for two people who have barely held a civil conversation in months, and when they part, chests heaving and breathing steam into the frigid night air, Harry finds himself smiling.

“Been waiting to do that for a while,” he confides guiltily. “Missed you… missed this.”

His hands are on Louis’ hips, holding him close, while Louis is tethered to the front of Harry’s jacket, small hands fisting in the material as though he’s clinging on for dear life. Humming, Louis bows his head and sinks back to the flats of his feet, eyelashes fanning across his cheeks.

“Got it out of your system?” he asks, looking up at Harry slyly, a smile playing around his lips.

Harry returns it, grinning until his dimples pop in his cheek. “Not even close.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://alwaystyles.tumblr.com).


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